


it's never over

by errantia (ironyman)



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: All the headcanon, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/M, Fifty Themes, Gen, Genderbending, Headcanon, Not actually one sentence each
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2018-01-12 13:48:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1187553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironyman/pseuds/errantia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fifty short themes, from the beginning to the end of the story of Edwyn Mustang (née Elric).</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's never over

**Author's Note:**

> So I have this genderbent 'verse. And no, I swear it's not just because I feel more comfortable drawing and writing girls than guys, and it's not just because I feel vaguely uncomfy shipping Ed/Roy in a century where that'd be illegal (at least, without talking about it or handwaving it entirely). I swear! It's actually a reasonably fleshed-out 'verse! In my head. Eheheh. I've got an alternate timeline for Ed (Edwyn in this incarnation, 'cause I've got to be different), and things kind of snowballed into there being a very AU result. It's hinted at here, I have her backstory typed up somewhere else, and I even have a story in the works in which she's pulled through the gate into the canon!verse.  
> Anyway, this is my favorite thing I've written in this, and I figured it would be fun to post. Enjoy, hypothetical reader!
> 
> Oh yeah, and I reserve the right to expand any and all of these into proper one-shots. ;)

**01 - Snow**

The first time I saw snow in Central was when I stayed with Shou Tucker, transmuting garlands and snowmen for little Nina. The second time I saw snow in Central, I cried.

**02 - Child**

Despite my age, I have never been a child.

**03 - Brick**

My basement was made out of brick; that’s the only reason the whole house didn’t burn.

**04 - Judgment**

The Gate is bullshit. You can’t place an arbitrary value on human life.

**05 - Powder**

I once saw Roy sitting at the cold fireplace in the middle of the night, staring bleakly into empty ash.

**06 - Grim**

I thought, when I was little, that all of the fairy tales Mom read us were alchemical codes.

**07 - Trap**

Of course it’s a trap – but I’ll always have to go anyway.

**08 - Star**

The stars are different in the other world, colder and farther away and set in unfamiliar, unfriendly constellations.

**09 - Possession**

I’m not that possessive, but I burned his little black book. (He’s mine, bitches.)

**10 – Bandage**

It’s awful to see Al bleed, but at the same time it’s so wonderful that he’s alive so that I can patch him up.

**11 - Pearl**

I kind of feel sorry for Mei Chang, but really, a tall, handsome guy? Pff, I’m better than that.

**12 - Glass**

The other-world Al was once made of steel; when I brought my Al back, I was so afraid of his fragility that I treated him like glass.

**13 - Classified**

The reports and research of the Fullmetal Alchemist are not open to the public, but they’re sure open to massive speculation.

**14 - Buttons**

“Whoever came up with zippers should get a medal,” I pant hot against his neck, pinned against the wall and fumbling.

**15 – Closet**

A lot of people thought I was lesbian, after I stopped pretending to be a guy and before I married Mustang. I thought a lot of people were stupid.

**16 - Ash**

Fire reminds me of Roy, of course, but ash makes me think of my mother, and the life I burned so long ago.

**17 - Definition**

Happiness, noun. A whole family, hurts healed and together at last.

**18 - Staircase**

There are four steps to the porch. Al took them, slowly, one by one, on his own, and knocked on the door.

**19 - Nail**

If I ever doubted Winry’s love for me, all I had to do was look at my automail hand, steel-strong and slender, each nail picked out delicately in engraved metal.

**20 - Prey**

I will never forgive Cornello for what he did to Liore: giving the city a prayer, and the homunculi prey.

**21 - Backwards**

I got an automail leg so that I could keep moving forwards; I never looked back until I was standing at my mother’s door, hand in hand with my brother.

**22 - Trouble**

He knew I was trouble when I kicked in the door.

**23 - Little**

I yelled because I was so glad they weren’t calling me a girl.

**24 - Collar**

The demilitarization of the State Alchemists didn’t relieve the tension on the leash, but it replaced the manacles with a light collar.

**25 - Circle**

I clapped.

**26 - Hands**

Roy’s are covered with the burns and scars of battle, Riza’s with calluses from her guns. Winry’s are rough with nicks from metal and stink of machine oil; Al’s are smooth and new as a child’s. My mother’s touch is lily-soft, my father’s rough and tentative. My hands are the strangest: one a warrior’s metal weapon, the other a scholar’s wield. Hands say a lot about a person.

**27 - Freedom**

Roy says he wants democracy, justice for all, freedom for our Ishvalan brethren. I say I just don’t want any more politics. Not quite sure either of these goals are reachable.

**28 - Last**

I only say goodbye to my mother when I’m sure I’ll be home.

**29 - Scab**

We don’t talk about Hughes.

**30 – Crown**

I saw my old coat the other day – his coat, perhaps – red and black and the crowned flamel. Alchemy will always be king.

**31 - Time**

In fifty years, his face wrinkles into a smile and I have loved him my entire life.

**32 - Rice**

Winry’s face when she registered how thin Al was, back from the Gate. . . I thought I would laugh my ass off.

**33 - Worn**

It took a while for me to be able to even talk to my mother, the thread of our connection so worn-down and aching.

**34 - Paint**

I don’t like white rooms – they remind me of weeks spent in hospitals, eternities spent with a snickering voice and black doors.

**35 - Ache**

My ports still ache every time it rains.

**36 - Cherry**

My life may have burnt to the ground, but its embers still glow cherry-red.

**37 - Library**

I breathe in the new-book smell of the rebuilt First Central Library and smile. The good memories of here outweigh the bad.

**38 - Win**

I won, in the end. I got Al back, I got home, I got the guy.

**39 - Loss**

So why does it feel like the sacrifices I made won’t end up being enough?

**40 - Fold**

My right hand clicks and struggles to smooth a crease in the eightieth paper crane. Who knew origami was such good therapy? Who knew I could hate origami so fucking much?

**41 - Music**

The other Roy has a grand piano in his house. I’ve never asked mine if he ever played.

**42 - Bell**

I always work best at the eleventh hour.

**43 - Sleep**

I can’t count the times that I’ve worked into the wee hours of the morning, figuring out some alchemical epiphany or other, and woken up in my own bed the next day.

**44 - Contact**

In the oddest of ways, I miss the other world, but I’d never run the risk of reaching across the Gate again.

**45 - Electricity**

The bolt of bright blue energy runs down my spine, and I think, _I’ve missed this._

**46 - Milk**

I will _not_ drink that disgusting stuff, I don’t _care_ if I never grow, I get enough calcium _thank you very much._ I’m a perfectly normal height for my age. . . for my gender.

**47 - Wild**

Al shakes his head, sometimes, at my energy, starts to ask how I got that wild, who raised me, seriously?—but it’s too soon yet to joke about that.

**48 - Expectation**

I’ve been waiting for this happy ending for so long that I don’t even know what to do now that I have it.

**49 - Mechanism**

My arm and leg are perfect machines, but it’s harder for me to fathom sometimes the mechanisms of Al’s body – how he’s so perfect, every pump of blood through his veins and whoosh of air in his lungs, every action potential propagating itself perfectly along his nerves, even after all of my mistakes.

**50 – Finale**

It’s never over.


End file.
